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MEMORIAL DAYS: 



H02 



Centennial Sermon. 



PREACHED BEFORE THE CINCINNATI CONFERENCE AT ITS 
SESSION IN CINCINNATI, SEPT. 4, 1875. 



BY 



GRANVILLE MOODY, D. D. 



**T/ns day shall be to you for a memorial.'''' — ExODUS xii, 14. 



CI NCINN ATI: 

HITCHCOCK and w a l d e n . 

NEW YORK: NELSON & PHILLIPS. 

187s. 




PREFATORY NOTE. 



This sermon was preached before the Cincinnati 
Annual Conference, at its session held in Cincinnati, 
September i-8, 1875, ^^ accordance with the following 
resolution, which, among others relating to the same 
matter, was adopted by the General Conference of 1872: 

''Resolved, That each Annual Conference shall, in 

1874, provide for a memorial discourse to be delivered 
before its own body during its session first preceding the 
fourth of July, 1876, and shall, during its session in 

1875, give the necessary directions to secure in all our 
Churches the observance of the commemorative services 
in 1876 recommended by the Board of Bishops." 



i 



Memorial Days. 



^^This day shall be unto you for a memorial.'''' — Exodus xii, 14. 

In our text the Israelites were commanded by God to 
commemorate the day of their independence. To the 
thoughtful mind there are many points of resemblance be- 
tween the history of the United Tribes of Israel in one 
government, and the United States of America in one 
nationahty. i. They were of noble parentage — the chil- 
dren of Abraham, the friend of God. 2. From seventy 
souls they grew into a great and independent nation. 
3. They were worshipers of the true God. 4. During the 
first part of their history they were kindly treated by the 
dominant power. 5. A king arose who knew not Joseph 
and his kindred. 6. He set arbitrary officers over them. 
7. He imposed taxation without representation. 8. The 
more they complained, the more they were oppressed. 
9. At length God undertook for them in justice. 10. God 
raised up a deliverer, Moses. 11. God gave him a com- 
mission to abolish their slavery. 12. The Israelites were 
slow and reluctant in accepting their liberty. 13. The 
demands of Moses were rejected by Pharaoh and his slave- 
holding partners. 14. God brought wasting and desola- 
tion on them. 15. The king finally gave full consent to 
their independence. 16. They became one people under 
one government. 17. They flourished greatly. 18. They 
had a rebellion under Absalom, which was put down by 



6 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

David, while Absalom himself was hung under the great 
oak that is in Bashan. 

We meet at the call of patriotism to glance at the 
events of the century just closing. Patriotisin is the love 
of one's country; that passion which aims to serve one's 
country, either in defending it from invasion, or defending 
its rights and maintaining its laws and institutions in vigor. 
It is the characteristic of a good citizen, the noblest pas- 
sion that animates a man in the character of a citizen, 
leading him to support and defend it and its interests. 

"I am," said the immortal Richard Watson, "no ad- 
mirer of that universal civism, that citizenship of the worlds 
which, under the pretense of love to all men, would ex- 
tinguish OMX partialities for our own country." Why should 
I love my native land more than any other land? This 
delusive question may be answered by another, "Why 
should I love my own family, and relatives, and friends, 
more than any others?" The answer is, God designed it 
for the general good, and formed our nature for the exer- 
cise and reception of such particular affections. They 
arise from natural and necessary associations of ideas 
which can not be suppressed or obliterated without the 
most unnatural violence. Yet as any particular affection 
for my own relatives or friends is no reason why I should 
hate others, so the warmest patriotism is not at all incon- 
sistent with universal good will to mankind. The Jews 
said to Christ of the Gentile centurion, " He is worthy for 
whom thou shouldst do this, for he loveth our nation and 
hath built us a synagogue." Indeed love to our country 
is only love to our neighbor extended to a national scale, 
and one may well ask, 

«* Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said 
This is my own, my native land?" 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 7 

True patriotism will lead us to be deeply affected by 
the calamities and dangers of our country. It will re- 
strain us from injuring and prompt us to serve it. It will 
lead us to foster all those institutions which conserve our 
national interests, and to feel a supreme concern for the 
credit, the interest, and the safety of the land of our birth 
or adoption. Fatnotis?n will lead us to recognize God as 
the Supreme Governor among the nations, and to ac- 
knowledge his favor to be our life, and to render to him 
suitable acknowledgments and hearty thanksgivings, and 
to apply to him for wisdom and supplies, and protection 
and perpetuity. 

True patriotism then is a holier and nobler attainment 
than mere party politicians ever dreamed of, who seem so 
horrified that Christian ministers, or Christian men, should 
carry religion into politics, and charge them with carry- 
ing politics into the pulpit, when they inculcate by divine 
authority the morals of Christianity. When poHtics cover 
the path of morals, then they come on our grounds and 
the Church, and her ministry must be valiant for the right 
against those who would frame iniquity by a law and 
practice sin, which is the destruction of any people. Civil 
government is the ordinance of God, as Paul declared in 
Romans xiii, 1-7 verses inclusive, and its express design 
is to suppress vice and encourage virtue, since "right- 
eousness exalts a nation." 

Charged as we are with a debt of gratitude to God 
for the favors he has conferred upon us, we should duly 
consider our vast and varied obligations to the All- 
wise Disposer of events. Nor need we fear that the 
charge of exaggeration can be sustained against us while 
we attempt a survey of the first century of our exist- 
ence as an independent nation among the nations of the 
earth. An hyperbole of the magnitude and plentitude 



8 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

of our national interests would still prove but an ellipsis 
of the facts. 

This continent, discovered just at the time when civil 
and religious liberty had reached their limits in the Old 
World, and were looking out for a new and wider field for 
the development of man's capability for self-government, 
then this Western continent most invitingly opened. Des- 
potism in Church and State had for long centuries held 
humanity in chains. But with its native instincts, bat- 
tling for liberty against heavy odds, Christianity, which 
always inspires liberty, indicated that the hour had come 
to cast off the fetters that bound its votaries to the throne 
and altar of tyrants. Brave men, with the fear of God 
before their eyes, and almost single handed, had resisted 
their oppressors and dealt stalwart blows for human rights. 
Huss, Jerome of Prague, Wyclif, Luther, Melanchthon, 
and their predecessors, coadjutors, and successors, dared 
to protest against time-honored usurpations, and demand 
for the citizens of Christ's kingdom that liberty wherewith 
Christ had made them free in all matters that pertain to 
conscience and to God. 

Luther and Tyndale, by the new art of printing, gave 
the Bible to the people in their mother-tongue. But, alas! 
the odds against them in the Old World were too great, 
where tyranny had become an ''establishment," and might 
was joined with ''miter," and oppression was found in an 
unholy alliance with the so-called Church of Christ! The 
Papal Church having its human head in the Pope at Rome, 
the Protestant Church in England had its human head 
in Henry the VIII, whose infamous career was a scandal 
to the cause of Christ, of which he claimed to be the 
"defender of the Christian faith by the grace of God." 

During the days of the bloody Queen Mary, the 
"Puritan Protestants" were exiled from England, and 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 9 

^after her death they returned bringing an unsettled con- 
troversy between themselves with them. Under the 
succeeding reign of Queen Ehzabeth, these Puritan Prot- 
estants were required to observe a punctilhous observance 
of many Popish ceremonies, which unfortunately were 
retained in the Church of England, and a Church tri- 
bunal was erected for the summary trial of offenders 
against these formulas. This was called the -Court of 
High Commission," and was really a -Protestant Inquisi- 
tion;" and many clergymen were tried for non-conformity 
to certain Church laws about wearing the surplice, and 
performing ceremonies of a decidedly Papal origin and 
tendencies, and for these high offenses these holy men 
were imprisoned, some two years, in a gloomy dungeon, 
and all for refusing to wear the rags of Popery and per- 
form signs and services that showed plainly enough that 
the ''Reformation needed reforming." 

In 1564 the Reverends Sampson and Humphrey boldly 
pleaded the rights of conscience, and they and their ad- 
herents were stigmatized as Puritans, and were pubhcly 
condemned, the clergy to loss of place, the laity, who 
adhered to them, to fines, mutilation, imprisonments, ex- 
patriation, and death. In 1592 more stringent laws were 
passed against them. After continued wrongs done to 
the Puritans by the semi-Papal establishment, called the 
Church of England, the Puritans resolved to leave their 
country, and seek, in the wilderness of America, the 
liberty to worship God, so cruelly denied them m Eng- 
' land. This is indeed God's order. Principles come first; 
providences comes next; persons last. Principles are eter- 
nal; providences develop principles; principles make 
distinguished persons. 

In no providence is God more manifest than m the 
case of the men who came to this continent and finally 



10 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

effected a landing on Plymouth Rock on the 2 2d of 
December, 1620. 

Before they went on shore they formed a written com- 
pact, a pure democracy, a society of individuals, volun- 
tarily instituting a government of, for, and by the people, 
for the good of the governed; and on the floor of the 
Mayflower they drafted the plan of our own glorious 
government: the wonder and admiration of the world. 
These old Puritans thus anticipated the age, and em- 
bodied in form the principles asserted later in our glorious 
"Declaration." Here it is: 

"■In the name of God. Amen! We, whose names 
are underwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread Sov- 
raigne. Lord King James, • by the Grace of God of 
Great Britaine, France and Ireland, King, Defender of 
the Faith, etc., — 

''Having undertaken, for the glory of God and ad- 
vancement of the Christian Faith, and honour of our 
King, and countrie, a voyage to plant the first Colony in 
the Northern parts of "Virginia, doe, by these Presents, 
solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and of 
one another, covenant and combine ourselves together 
into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and pres- 
ervation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid, and by 
virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame, such Just 
and Equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions and 
Offices, from time to time as shall be thought most meet 
and convenient for the general good of the Colony : unto 
which we promise all due submission and obedience. 

"In Witness hereof, we have hereunder subscribed 
our names. Cape Cod, nth of November, in the year 
of the Raigne of our Sovraigne Lord King James of Eng- 
land,. France, and Ireland, 18 & of Scotland 54 — Anno 
Domino 1620." 



I 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. II 

The distinguished bard of England pertinently and 
poetically describes their enterprise, and relates of that 
crisal hour that — 

"The breaking waves dashed high 
On a stern and rock-bound coast, 
And the woods against a stormy sky 
Their giant branches tossed; 

And the heavy night hung dark 

The hills and waters o'er, 
"When a band of exiles moored their bark 

On the wild New England shore. 

Not as the conqueror comes, 

They, the true hearted, came ; 
Not with the roll of stirring drums, 

And the trumpet that sings of fame ; 

Not as the flying come, 

In silence and in fear : — 
They shook the depths of the desert gloom 

With their hymns of lofty cheer. 

Amidst the storm they sang. 

And the stars heard, and the sea; 
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 

To the anthem of the free. 

The ocean eagle soared 

From his nest by the white waves' foam, 
And the rocking pines of the forest roared,— 

This was their welcome home. 

There were men with hoary hair 

Amidst that pilgrim band ; 
"Why had they come to wither there. 

Away from their childhood's land ? 

There was woman's fearless eye 

Lit by her deep love's truth ; 
There was manhood's brow serenely high. 

And the fiery heart of youth. 



12 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

What sought they thus afar? 

Bright jewels of the mine? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? 

They sought a faith's pure shrine ! 

Ay, call it holy ground. 

The soil where first they trod; 
They have left unstained what there they found, — 

Freedom to worship God." 

God had, indeed, sifted three kingdoms of the Old 
World to get the seed with which to sow the virgin soil of 
this vast Western Continent, which he had reserved through 
long centuries to give Christian freemen the opportunity 
to show that man, originally made in the image of Jeho- 
vah's sovereignty, and constituted the Viceroy of Jehoi^ah, 
with a scepter to be swayed over every subordinate de- 
partment of being, is capable of governing himself, and 
in matters of conscience shall be responsible to God alone. 

They were endowed with wisdom to lay the deep 
foundations of all that is now most distinguishing and ex- 
cellent in our civil and religious institutions. Civil liberty, 
founded on the great principle ''that all men are created 
equal, and are by their Creator endowed with inalienable 
rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," was 
boldly declared as unquestionable truth. 

And that these sacred and secular rights might be 
secured, they held to the necessity of universal education, 
and aimed at the general diffusion of knowledge. Schools 
and seminaries of learning were early established. 
Churches were erected, and the sanctuaries of their God 
were lighted with the talents and piety of gifted men. 

Preserved from the jealous interference of the spies 
and satellites of royal and churchly despots, they grew to 
greatness in their colonial condition. Almost every nation ^ 
rose from a base and degenerate origin. The Romans 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 13 

sprang from a mean and spurious band of marauders, and 
Romulus and Remus, wolf-nursed, showed the same fero- 
cious disposition. 

The European nations were founded in ignorance and 
superstition. Our ancestors, however, were the chief 
glory and ornaments of the lands they left to seek a 
home where man is man. They were men of intelligence, 
capacity, and culture ; strong in faith in God ; spiritual in 
temper; pure in manners; brave, inflexible, and true; 
independent, fearless, and of iron will, and persistent 
to a proverb. Such a choice vine, planted in a new 
and fertile soil, could not fail of producing a fruitage like 
Eshcol. 

The settlement in New York by the Dutch; on James 
River by the CavaHers of England ; of Maryland by Lord 
Baltimore ; of the Carolinas by English and French Hu- 
guenots ; of Pennsylvania by Penn and English Quakers ; 
of Delaware by Swedes and Finlanders; Georgia by the 
English, German, Swiss, and Scotch under James Ogle- 
thorpe ; these various colonial settlements brought the men 
of thought, enterprise, and courage, and the lovers and 
devotees of liberty from England, Scotland, Ireland, 
France, Switzerland, Sweden, Finns and Danes, Africans; 
Puritans, Churchmen (Episcopalians), Catholics, Baptists, 
Quakers, Infidels; Whigs, Tories, Monarchists, Aristocrats, 
Republicans, Democrats; Farmers, Mechanics, Merchants, 
Traders, Preachers, Priests. Thus the original thirteen 
colonies commenced to work out the problem of their 
conditions and their enterprise, and built themselves into 
the history of American civilization, so unique, elastic, and 
progressive, that "naught but itself could be its parallel." 
The policy of encouraging immigration from abroad 
contributed greatly to the rapid advancement of the col- 
onies, so that they had early acquired the distinction of 



14 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

the asylum of the oppressed of all nations. The inter- 
state migration was an amalgamation of the peculiarities 
of the emigration from Europe, producing a new and dis- 
tinctive type of humanity called the American citizen. 

We may not, on this occasion, even glance at the 
fifteen decades which glided onward like a tide of glory 
up to the historic period of 1776. This septeniad of the 
great American Revolution is emphatically styled by the 
chroniclers of the world's history as the days that tried 
7neiis souls. 

This intelligent audience is familiar with the imme- 
diate history of our country's pre-revolutionary times. The 
long war which Great Britain had waged with France 
and her Indian allies had burdened the British nation 
with an immense public debt, and the statesmen of 
the British Parliament, with Lord North at their head, 
resolved on laying the burden on the American Colonies 
by the taxation of almost every thing that could be taxed, 
and the colonists were burdened successively with taxes 
on tea, sugar, molasses, glass, till the odious Stamp Act 
stamped its authors as heartless tyrants, who, with aris- 
tocratic haughtiness, deemed that they were *'born booted 
and spurred to ride the rest of mankind legitimately by 
the grace of God," as Thos. Jefferson indignantly avowed 
in his burning anathemas on their liigh-handed course. 

Almighty God had occupied the preceding hundred 
and fifty years in training up the hardy generation that 
achieved our national independence, and, to use the lan- 
guage of that immortal state paper, the Declaration of 
Independence, ''to assume among the powers of the 
earth that separate and equal station to which the laws 
of nature and of nature's God entitled them !" There are 
epochs, big with the destinies of nations, as seen in the 
battles of Constantine, Tours, the Armada of Spain, the 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 1 5 

battle of Waterloo, the Revolutionary War probably stands 
pre-eminent in importance in the grand drama of this 
world's connected interests. 

On the 4th of July, 1776, our fathers, with full knowl- 
edge of the consequences of their formal declaration, said 
to Great Britain, ^' We must acquiesce in the necessity 
which demands our separation, and we hold our British 
brethren, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, 
in peace friends; and for the support of this our declara- 
tion, with a firm dependence upon the protection of Di- 
vine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our 
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." 

There was a moral grandeur, a chivalrous daring in 
the deeds of those days absolutely astounding. We con- 
template an event without a parallel in the history of the 
world — a nation in its boyhood rising up to contend for su- 
premacy with the most powerful nation in all the world, — 
a nation whose proud boast was, and is, that the sun in 
his course follows the drum beat of her armies and 
shines continually on the arms of her sovereignty. 

Widely scattered colonies, with no bond of union, 
with but limited resources in all that constitutes the essen- 
tial elements of a successful enterprise, arrayed themselves 
against the greatest military power by sea and by land, 
against the power of Great Britain, which was determined 
to crush out the first insurrectionary movements of her 
American Colonies. 

But how utterly vain and futile was the attempt! As 
well might they have essayed to arrest the wild march 
of the red simoom of the desert, or bid back to ocean's 
depths her flowing tides, as to suppress the high resolves 
of our forefathers in the maintenance of their rights. 

Led on in freedom's holy cause by Hancock, Adams, 
Otis, Quincy, Warren, Henry, Carroll, Ethan Allen, 



1 6 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

Montgomery, Greene, Gates, Sumter, Moultrie, Schuyler, 
Putnam, Lee, Clinton, Wolfe, Marion, and a host of de- 
termined patriots, they promptly sent a note across the 
Atlantic that rang like the knell of destiny on the ear of 
despots. Led on by these master spirits in council or in 
camp, the chivalrous colonists, inspired with holy patriotism, 
left nets and fishing boats, plow and loom, anvil and factory, 
store and court, school and college, pulpit and pew, and 
rushed to gory battle-fields, courted the posts of danger, 
and shook their martial steel in the grim face of death. 

In this dread crisis God gave our armies for their 
Chief Commander, the immortal Washington, "first in war, 
first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen!'' God 
planted the beaming star of hope on the brow of the fir- 
mament, and our country's flag with the white of purity, 
the red of blood ready to flow in its defense, and the 
blue of heaven's own dome, and all begemmed with the 
stars of the millennial morn of freedom, swept the free 
air of heaven in holy triumphs. 

•'Ah, then, the soul of battle was abroad. 
And blazed upon the air." 

During seven long and weary years our fathers main- 
tained the unequal warfare. Washington, with his Fabian 
policy, wearied the relentless foe, leading him by suc- 
cessful battles and retreats farther and farther from his 
base of supplies. The patriot citizens made every sac- 
rifice to sustain our armies, and treated Tories with the 
vindicatory sword that sent them to other spheres as un- 
wilHng immigrants. The women of the Revolution were 
true as steel to our holy cause, and from boyhood to old 
age the shout was heard, "Give me liberty, or give me 
death!" The pulpits of the land were thrones of power 
in freedom's holy cause, so much so that Bancroft, the 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 1 7 

great historian, says that "to no class of men is the suc- 
cess of the Revolutionary struggle more indebted than to 
the clergymen of our country in that dark and dreary 
septeniad." The lovers of freedom throughout Christen- 
dom sympathized with us, and Blucher, from Germany, 
with his familiar cavalry order, ''Forward, brothers, for- 
ward!" and France, with her Marquis De Lafayette 
and his brilliant companions in arms, lent the flash of 
their sabers or the thunders of their arms along our serried 
lines. For seven long years they tracked their way to 
the temple of freedom with bleeding feet, nor faltered 
once till they had planted our war-worn, storm-faded, 
bullet-riddled banner of beauty and glory on its dome. 

The election of General Washington to the Presidency 
of the Republic put this glorious scheme of self-govern- 
ment into the hands of the Father of his Country, and 
with entire confidence in his patriotism and wisdom. 
Those glorious ancestors of ours knew their rights, and 
knowing dared maintain them against the proudest and 
most, puissant nation in all the world, and they left their 
claims to the stern arbitrament of arms in the final court 
of appeal presided over by the Lord God of Sabaoth. 

Defiantly and hopefully they threw our banner to the 
breeze, and unfalteringly followed its varying fortunes 
from Bunker Hill to Yorktown's closing fight, where Lord 
Cornwallis sullenly lowered the British flag, with its lion 
and unicorn and brave St. George's cross, before our 
conquering battle flag; and in the eyes of a wondering 
world the genius of universal liberty wreathed the laurels 
of victory over our national banner, and placed it on the 
temple of freedom to float as the beacon of hope, the 
oriflamme of the brave and the free, 

"Whilst earth bears a flower, 
Or ocean rolls a wave." 
2 



l8 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

Thus the glorious men of the first decade of this dos- 
ing century built themselves into the history of the great 
republic, and gave to posterity the legacy of freedom. 
"Blessings be on their memory and their work. These 
were our patriot sires, and belong to them the palm 
branch and triumphal song, — conquerors and yet the 
harbingers of peace !" 

On the 3d of September, 1783, a definitive Treaty of 
Peace between the United States of America and His 
Britannic Majesty, George the Third, was signed in Paris, 
commencing in true orthodox style as follows ; 

" In the name of the most holy and undivided trinity, 
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen. His Britannic 
Majesty hereby acknowledges that New Hampshire, Mas- 
sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, Free, Sov- 
ereign, and Independent States, and treats with them as 
such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors relinquishes 
all claims to the Government, Proprietary and Territorial 
Rights of the same, and every power thereof." 

Signed by the Commissioners Plenipotentiary, etc., of 
Great Britain, in behalf of His Royal Highness, George 
the Third, etc. 

Soon after the colonies had secured their liberty 
through the flames of battle, and the country found peace 
and independence, it was found that the Articles of Con- 
federation, which had served their day while the outside 
pressure of a terrible war had compelled their unity for 
the common defense against a common enemy, when 
that common danger was passed, proved like ropes of 
sand to bind the colonies together as one people; and the 
people, though free from the yoke of foreign domination, 
were still without a regular or efficient government. 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. I9 

Wise and patriotic men saw the difficulties and the 
necessity of forming a national government, and delegates 
from the thirteen colonies were elected to a convention, 
whose business should be to draw up a plan of govern- 
ment. That convention met in Philadelphia, in May, 
1787, and after incredible labor, they agreed upon a plan 
of general government, which was styled ''The Constitu- 
tion of the United States." This was presented to the 
Continental Congress in September of the same year, and 
being ratified by the people of the several States, went 
into operation in 1789, and from that day to this, with its 
various amendments, as provided for in the body of that 
Constitution, has continued to be the foundation of our 
national existence, the supreme law of the land. 

The union of these peoples in one grand nationality 
was deemed by our patriot fathers an absolute necessity. 

In the preamble to the Constitution of the United 
States they declared as follows : 

*'We, the people [not we the colonies or States] of the 
United States, in order to form a more perfect union [than 
the old Confederacy of States], to establish justice, insure 
domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty to ourselves and our posterity,' do ordain and es- 
tabhsh this Constitution for the United States." 

''This Constitution, and the laws of the United States 
which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the 
United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and 
the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any 
thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to be con- 
trary notwithstanding." 

Thus the patriot founders of government declared that 
the union of the peoples of those colonics or States in one 



20 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

distinct nationality, having absolute oneness and supreme 
authority, was a necessity of their existence. This nation- 
ality was, in their judgment, as necessary as it was a 
necessity to form a more perfect union than they had 
hitherto had; and this nationality^ as constituted by the 
Constitution of the United States (for a constitution is 
that which constitutes), was, in their judgment, as neces- 
sary as it was necessary to "establish justice," "insure 
domestic tranquillity," "provide for the common defense," 
"promote the general welfare," and "secure the blessings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." 

Our nationality was the creature of necessities, 
physical, moral, social, and pohtical; and the existence 
of the peoples of the States, as one undivided and in- 
divisible nationality, was produced and has endured 
and must endure by the same necessities which produced 
our nationality. 

That nationality, constituted by the adoption by the 
peoples of the United States of that Constitution which 
constituted them a body politic, with a supreme legisla- 
ture, a supreme judiciary, and a supreme executive, a 
government which acts on individuals and not on States, 
whose laws are supreme, which raises and dispenses its 
own revenues, and alone can have an army or navy, 
alone can control a general postal system, forbids any 
State to enter into any treaty, alliance or confederation, 
to grant letters of marque and reprisal, coin money, 
emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and silver 
coin a tender in payment of debts, pass any bill of at- 
tainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation 
of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. No State 
shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any impost or 
duties on imports or exports; nor shall it, without the 
consent of Congress, lay any duty or tonnage, keep any 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 21 

troops or ships of war in times of peace, enter into any- 
compact or agreement with any other State, or with a 
foreign state, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, 
or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay." 
(See section lo.) Under this organic, fundamental, su- 
preme law, namely, the Constitution of the United States, 
no room nor loop-hole was left for any appeal from the su- 
preme legislative, judicial, and executive authority of 
such a government "of, for, and by the people." They 
intended to leave not a peg to hang a speech upon in 
favor of nullification, secession, or state sovereignty, as if 
by an inspired prescience of future attempts to divide and 
destroy our integrity. 

A supreme governor is one who has no superior or 
acknowledges none, and so a supreme government is one 
that has and that acknowledges no superior, as England, 
France, Germany, or Russia. Yet every State acknowl- 
edges the superiority of our general government, which 
declares that the Constitution, and the laws and treaties 
made thereunder, shall be the supreme law of the la?id, 
**and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, 
any thing in the constitution of any State to the contrary 
notwithstanding. " 

In other words they founded a national government, 
with an organic life, vital in every part, with an inherent 
right to live forever, and to defend its life, and which 
could only by annihilation die; a government supreme 
in its authority, and pledged to secure the ends of its be- 
ing, nor suffer attack, nor commit suicide, nor abdicate, 
nor suffer our starry flag to be rent in twain, nor divide 
our heritage of graves, nor allow any reduction of our 
grand dimensions, nor permit the erection of a hostile or 
friendly power on our national domain. The government 
in local matters is left with the States respectively, with 



22 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

the agreement that any State legislation that is not in 
harmony with the Constitution and laws and treaties of 
the United States is null and void. Thus our patriot 
sires combined the centripetal and centrifugal forces, and 
made the general government the sun, and the States as 
planets, in that system of matchless beauty, power, and 
efficiency for good. 

The framing and adoption of the Constitution of the 
United States, that great pillar of our country's glory, is 
not surpassed by any of the blessings with which God 
has favored our country. 

In a letter from Washington to Lafayette, of Febru- 
ary 1 8, 1778, he says, ''It appears to me little short of a 
miracle that delegates from so many States, so different in 
their manners, customs, prejudices, and interests, should 
ever unite in framing a system of national government 
so little liable to serious objections. We may trace the 
finger of Providence through those dark and mysterious 
events which first induced the States to appoint a general 
convention, and then led them, one after another, into 
the adoption of the system, thereby laying an enduring 
foundation for tranquillity and happiness, where we had 
too much reason to fear that confusion and misery were 
coming upon us." 

''It astonished me," said Benjamin Franklin, jn his 
closing speech to the Convention, "to find the system ap- 
proaching so near perfection as it does, and it will astonish 
our enemies, who are waiting to hear that our counsels are 
confounded, like those of the builders of Babel." 

In the midst of political difficulties the most appalling, 
and tossed on a sea of doubts, Dr. Franklin, on the morning 
of June 28th, 1787, rose and said to the Convention: 

"Mr. President: The slow progress we have made, 
after four or five weeks close attendance and continual 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 23 

reasoning with each other, our different sentiments on 
ahiiost every question, several of the last producing as 
many nays as yeas, is, methinks, a melancholy proof of 
the imperfection of human understanding. We, indeed, 
seem to feel our want of political wisdom, since we have 
been running about in search of it. We have gone back 
to ancient history for models of government, and ex- 
amined the different forms of those republics, which, 
having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolu- 
tion, now no longer exist; and we have viewed modern 
States all around Europe, but find none of their constitu- 
tions suitable to our circumstances. 

' ' In this situation of this assembly, groping as it were 
in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to 
distinguish it when presented to it, how has it happened, 
sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly 
applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our un- 
derstanding? 

''In the beginning of our contest with Great Britain, 
when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers 
in this room for the divine protection! Our prayers, sir, 
were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of 
us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed 
frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our 
favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy op- 
portunity of consulting in peace on the means of estab- 
lishing our future national fidelity. And have we now 
forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine we no 
longer need his assistance? 

**I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live 
the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God 
governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow can not 
fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that 
an empire can rise without his aid? 



24 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

'*We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, 
that ' Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain 
that build it.' We, sir, shall succeed in this political build- 
ing no better than the builders of Babel ! We shall be di- 
vided by our little parties, local interests; our project will 
be confounded, and we ourselves become a reproach and 
by-word, down to future ages. And what is worse, man- 
kind may hereafter, from this unfortunate circumstance, 
despair of establishing governments by human wisdom, 
and leave it all to chance, war, and conquest. 

''I beg leave, therefore, to move that henceforth 
p'aycrs, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings 
on our deliberations, be held in this assemby every morn- 
ing before we proceed to business, and that one or more 
of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that 
service." 

. "Never," writes one who was present, "did I see a 
countenance at once so delighted and dignified as was 
that of Washington at the close of FrankHn's appeal for 
prayer; nor were the members of the Convention gener- 
ally less affected. The words of Franklin fell on our 
ears with an authority and weight even greater than we 
may suppose an oracle to have had in a Roman Senate !" 
The motion was put instantly to appoint a Chaplain, and 
so pertinent and convincing was the speech of Franklin, 
that it was carried, with a solitary negative. The Convention 
adjourned for three days. As soon as the Chaplain closed 
the morning prayer, all eyes turned to Dr. Franklin. He 
made a few lucid remarks and offered his famous resolution 
on the formation of the Senate, by allowing two Senators 
to each State, large and small alike, by which equality was 
granted to each State in the Senate. The Gordian knot 
was untied, and the Scripture was literally fulfilled, "A 
nation was born in a day." 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 25 

After the Convention had closed its labors, and the 
Constitution was adopted that gave us our nationality, 
Dr. Franklin acknowledged the divine intervention as 
follows : 

*'I am not to be understood that our Convention was 
divinely inspired when it formed the new Federal Consti- 
tution. Yet I must own that I have so much faith in the 
general government of the world by Providence, that I 
can hardly conceive that a transaction of so much im- 
portance to the welfare of millions now in existence, and 
to exist in the posterity of a great nation, should be 
suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, 
guarded, and governed by that omnipotent and beneficent 
Ruler, in whom all inferior spirits live" and move and 
have their being." 

In i860. Governor Wise, of Virginia, in his great 
speech in Portland, Maine, said: ''The Constitution of 
the United States was a divine inspiration. There was 
not a man in that convention that had a head on his 
shoulders, or heart in his bosom, to enable him to origi- 
nate that schem.e. God sent it down to us from heaven. 
I believe that as much as I believe any thing I see. The 
same God that gave us the Bible gave us that fabric of 
our refuge; that palladium of our hope." 

If you ask why this Governor Wise in one brief year 
after uttering this great speech apostatized to the Southern 
Confederacy, and sought the destruction of the nation, 
we explain that he spoke thus when he was — Wise — and 
the reverse when otherwise. 

Thus the Constitution became a fixed fact amidst the 
general rejoicings of the millions of American citizens 
of the great republic, and under its authority George 
Washington was elected our first President, and took the 
oath of office on the 30th of April, 1789. The day 

3 



26 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

before the inauguration Congress passed the following 
resolution : 

^^ Resolved, That after the oath shall be administered 
to the President, the Vice-President and members of the 
Senate, the Speaker and members of the House of Rep- 
resentatives will accompany him to St. Paul's Chapel to 
hear divine service performed by the Chaplain." 

Chancellor Livingstone administered the oath, and 
Mr. Otis held up the Bible on its crimson cushion. The 
President^ as he bowed to kiss its sacred page, laid his 
hand on the open page of the Bible and said, "I swear," 
and added as if his whole soul went out in his supplica- 
tion, *'So help me God." 

Then Chancellor Livingstone said, with uplifted hand, 
*'It is done," and turning to the multitude he waved his 
hand, and with a loud voice exclaimed, "Long live 
George Washington," to which the vast multitude re- 
sponded in thundering shouts, and President Washington, 
with the whole assembly, proceeded, on foot, to St. Paul's 
Church, where prayers, suitable to the occasion, were 
offered by Dr. Provost, one of the appointed Chaplains 
of Congress. And thus, in simplest Christian style, and 

"Above the pomp that strikes the eye, 
And rites adorned with gold," J 

our noble Washington entered upon the office of the first 
President of the Republic; the stupendous fabric of his 
fame, resting on those grand virtues which a free Bible 
made the firm basis of his character. 

Thus whilst our patriot sires honored the Bible and 
the God of the Bible, they declared in the Constitution, 
article ist of Amendments, "Congress shall make no law 
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the 
free exercise of the same." J 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 2/ 

The people of the United States were so fully aware 
of the evils which arise from the union of Church and 
State, and the corruptions that had arisen to both from 
such an alliance, that they thus early protested against 
such alliance in the interests of the country and religion. 

"Let Cresar's claims to Caesar's things 
Be paid to Csesar's throne, 
But consciences and souls belong 
Unto the Lord alone." 

Every-where the voices of a consolidated population 
gave emphatic expression to the high appreciation of the 
erection of the nationality and the election of Washing- 
ton as its first President. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church has the distinction 
of presenting to the President the first congratulations 
offered by any of the Churches of the Republic, We 
adorn these pages by presenting the address of Bishops 
Coke and Asbury, signed in behalf of the Methodist 
Epispocal Church, New York, May 29, 17.89. 

Address of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

To tlie President of the United States. 

Sir: We, the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, humbly beg leave, in the name of our society, 
collectively, in these United States, to express to you the 
warm feelings of our hearts and our sincere congratula- 
tions on your appointment to the Presidentship of these 
States. We are conscious, from the signal proofs you 
have already given, that you are a friend of mankind, 
and under this estabHshed idea place as full confidence 
in your wisdom and integrity for the preservation of those 
civil and religious liberties, which have been transmitted 
to us by the providence of God and the glorious Revolu- 
tion, as we believe ought to be reposed in man. 



28 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

We have received the most grateful satisfaction from the 
humble and entire dependence on the great Governor of 
the Universe which you have repeatedly expressed, ac- 
knowledging him the source of every blessing, and par- 
ticularly of the most excellent Constitution of these States, 
which is at present the admiration of the world, and may 
in future become its great exemplar for imitation; and 
hence we enjoy a holy expectation that you will always 
prove a faithful and impartial patron of genuine, vital re- 
ligion, — the great end of our creation and present proba- 
tionary existence. And we promise you our fervent 
prayers to the throne of grace that God Almighty may 
endue you with all the graces and gifts of his Holy 
Spirit, — that he may enable you to fill your important 
station to his glory, the good of his Church, the happi- 
ness and prosperity of the United States, and the welfare 
of mankind. 

Signed, in behalf of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 

Thomas Coke, 

New York, May 29, 1789. Francis Asbury. 

ANSWER. 

To the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States 
of America. 
Gentlemen : I return to you individually, and through 
you to the society collectively in the United States, my 
thanks for the demonstrations of affection and the expres- 
sions of joy offered in their behalf on my late appoint- 
ment. It shall be my endeavor to manifest the purity of 
my inclinations for promoting the happiness of mankind, 
as well as the sincerity of my desire to contribute what- 
ever may be in my power toward the civil and religious 
welfare of the American people. In pursuing this line 
of conduct, I hope, by the assistance of Divine Provi- 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 29 

dence, not altogether to disappoint the confidence which 
you have been pleased to repose in me. 

It always affords me satisfaction when I find a con- 
currence of sentiment and practice between all conscien- 
tious men, in acknowledgments of homage to the great 
Governor of the Universe and in professions of support 
to a just civil gover-nment. After mentioning that I trust 
the people of every denomination, who demean them- 
selves as good citizens, will have occasion to be convinced 
that I shall always strive to prove a faithful and impartial 
patron of genuine, vital religion, I must assure you in 
particular that I take in the kindest part the promise you 
make of presenting your prayers at the Throne for me, 
and that I likewise implore the divine benediction upon 
yourselves and your religious community. 

George Washington. 

The loyalty and patriotism of the Methodist Church 
are displayed in the following article in their Church 
Constitution, adopted at the first Conference in Philadel- 
phia, in 1784 — 

Article 33. — Of the Rulers of the United States of America. 

The Congress, the General Assemblies, the Governors, 
and councils of States, as the delegates of the people, 
are the rulers of the United States of America, according 
to the division of power made to them by the general 
Act of Confederation and by the Constitutions of their re- 
spective States. And the said States ought not to be 
subject to any foreign power. 

Subsequently the following was added: — ; 

As far as it respects civil affairs, we believe it is the 
duty of Christians, and especially of Christian ministers, to 
be subject to the supreme authority of the country where 
they may reside, and to use all laudable means to enjoin 



30 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

obedience to the powers that he; and therefore it is expe- 
dient that all our preachers and people who may be 
under the British Government, or any other government, 
will behave themselves as peaceable and orderly subjects. 

"These declarations," says a Methodist author, "em- 
brace the doctrine of the Church in regard to civil gov- 
ernment; and whoever is not governed by this doctrine, 
and is not loyal to the government where he may reside, 
can not be a Methodist of the American stamp." 

In the Convention that formed the Constitution of the 
United States, the Methodist Church was represented by 
Richard Bassett, of Delaware, a distinguished lawyer, and 
a confidential friend of Bishop Asbury. He, with other 
influential Methodists of Delaware, George Read, John 
Dickinson, and their associates, urged the people of Del- 
aware to adopt the Constitution, which they did in 1787. 

The principles of the Bible gave to the people liberty 
of conscience. No one can find intoleration in the Word 
of God. Christ taught that fire from heaven is not to be 
called down from heaven upon men because they think 
and worship differently from us. The grand idea of 
Roger Williams was not original with him. It was as 
old as Christianity. He only beat it out from the rub- 
bish which had been thrown upon the Word of God. 
The application of the principles of the Gospel has es- 
tabHshed liberty of conscience. Before these the Cath- 
olic Inquisition has fled like the demons of night, and the 
edicts of tyrants rescinded, and persecution for religious 
opinions has become a strange thing. 

The Bible has given us civil freedom. It brings with 
it principles which men hold dearer than life; and wher- 
ever it has entered the domain of liberty, whether in 
imperial Rome, or under a persecuting anti-Christian 
Church, or in barbarous Madagascar, the tyrant finds at 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 3 1 

once men that will not do his will. He slays but he can 
not bend them. Thus it sets up barriers against the will 
of tyrants, and lays the basal stone in the temple of lib- 
erty. And Peter and John answered "Whether it be 
right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than 
unto God judge ye." This answer so true to the in- 
stincts of right, so congenial with all that is manly, so 
sublime and ultimate, however much it may have been 
despised by those who would bolster up an unholy, God- 
dishonoring, man-degrading, liberty-insulting system of 
human slavery, embodies the elements of earth's noblest 
deeds; and if its spirit were carried out the thrones of 
tyrants would tremble to their base, and such revolu- 
tions would be produced among despots as if earth was 
heaved from its center by a mighty earthquake. The 
Bible must be destroyed, the Church of God annihilated 
before civil liberty will cease to undermine the thrones 
of despots, and diffuse among the people those principles 
that will surely lead them to assert their God-given rights. 

The Church has pioneered the State and taken the 
lead of its progress. It has occasioned the opposition to 
tyranny which has especially marked the last two hundred 
years. It has originated, and in some measure guided, 
the career of activity which so signally marks our age, 
and to which, with almost fearful energy, the human mind 
is now aroused. Christianity alone teaches, with an au- 
thority not to be disputed, the rights of man, not by the 
grant of rulers nor by the accident of birth, or wealth, or 
color, but the rights of man as he is the offspring of God. 
It has long been denied by the Tory of the Old World and 
the slaveocrat of the New, that there is such a thing as 
inherent and inalienable rights and the equality of man. 

But these are realities. Their foundation, and their 
only foundation is in the Bible. Honor all men is the 



32 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

emphatic utterance of that living oracle of the living God. 
Those grand utterances have no meaning except as de- 
rived from the Bible, which teaches that we are all the 
children of one Father, subjects of one law, fallen under 
the same condemnation, redeemed by the same Savior, 
equally bound to love all men as we love ourselves, and 
destined to meet at one judgment, the great, the last. 

Our Declaration of Independence, so far as it teaches 
the equal rights of man, is but an application to civil 
affairs of that principle of one blood and one brother- 
hood, one universal law of love taught in the Bible of 
our faith. The idea in question and kindred sentiments 
have become popular of late. Demagogues and infidels 
love to harp on them. This fact shows how powerful is 
the hold which they have at last gained on the public 
mind. But let those who use them know that these sen- 
timents are the creatures of eternity, the gift of Christian- 
ity to man. 

I see around me the influence of Christianity on the 
best interests of our race. Our own happy America, all 
that is lovely and of good report in our domestic and 
social relations; all that makes our country the glory of 
all countries; all in our institutions that commends itself 
to every man's enlightened and unbiased judgment, orig- 
inated in Christianity, is fostered by every true Church 
of Christ; and as the principles of Christianity progress, 
so will these institutions flourish, and all nations,- by our 
example, would exhibit the scene portrayed by the 
prophet, when all nations shall be gathered into one great 
brotherhood under Jesus their king. Were there naught 
else to declare it the Bible would show its path among 
the nations by its effects, like the hidden brook which — 

*'By the livelier green 
Betrays the secret of its hidden course !" 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 33 

It crushed slavery out of the old Roman Empire, and 
extirpated it out of our own glorious republic. 

Our fathers were better posted in the distinctive and 
ineradicable qualities of Popery than to allow it any ful- 
crum on which to act on the foundations of our glorious 
temple of civil, political, and religious freedom. They 
knew what Jesuits had done in Europe; how they had 
intrigued in every court, and camp, and council in the 
Old World; how with searching eye, and crouching 
mien, and stealthy step, and hidden claws, and fawning 
manners they had made their regular or oblique ap- 
proaches, till they got into position, and then showed 
their teeth, and with glaring eyes and protruding claws, 
mercilessly seized their unsuspecting prey in the name of 
some surly, ruthless Pope, who 

"Had stolen the livery of heaven 
To serve the Devil in." 

Our ancestors knew their historic, unchanged, un- 
changeable foe, doomed like the leopard to wear its in- 
effaceable spots, however it may seek to hide them by 
cowl, and surplice, and robe, and sanctimonious seeming. 
The Marquis De Lafayette, our nation's friend and pat- 
ron, said to our leading men, when he returned to 
France, '* Beware of the Jesuits! If ever your liberties 
are wrested from you, it will be by the intrigues and com- 
binations of Roman Catholics, who will never forgive you 
for your severance of Church and State." Ah, it will be 
well if our country, at this crisis, shall heed the warning 
voice of the nation's patron, the noble Frenchman, 
Lafayette, who had seen enough of Catholics in France 
to know them to be the inveterate foes of liberty every- 
where, and that they would engross in the oligarchy of 
the Roman Catholic Church all the powers of our land, 



34 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

and dispense its honors and emoluments to its obsequious 
votaries. The Pope has akeady put the Government of 
the United States- under the curse of his utterance be- 
cause of its independency of the Roman see, and its in- 
compatibiHty with its behests. 

Americans, too, can never forget, that whilst we were 
locked in the death struggle with the slaveocracy of our 
Southern States, who had inaugurated open, flagrant, 
deadly war to compel us to submit to our own dismem- 
berment and national destruction, that the present Pope, 
Pius IX, was the only crowned head in all Europe that 
declared the Independence of the Southern Confederacy, 
and addressed a Papal letter to the traitor, Jeff Davis, in 
which the Pope addressed Davis as ''Most Illustrious 
President," and sent him his congratulations. Pius IX and 
Jeff Davis were two despots, baptized into one spirit, the 
spirit of heartless, ruthless oppression. Nor need we 
wonder at it! ''Birds of a feather flock together," and 
Milton assures us that certain Secessionists from celestial 
spheres "firm concord hold." 

Surely it becomes us to be as sagacious as our patriot 
sires who taught us the sacred rights of conscience; the 
right to have and to read the Bible, and to claim and 
exercise the God-given right of private judgment in 
matters of religion, responsible alone to God for the use 
or abuse of that sacred right; and the right to worship 
God according to the dictates of our own conscience; 
and that our sacred and civil rights might not be abused, 
they held to the necessity of imiversal education, and es- 
tablished schools and seminaries as means to this great 
end. But now, forsooth, the Pope's syllabus of Decem- 
ber, 1864, declares that "education outside of the control 
of the Roman Catholic Church is a damnable heresy;" and 
the Catholic Telegi^aph says in a late issue, "The secular 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 35 

school system is a social cancer on the body politic, and 
the sooner it is destroyed the better! It will be a glori- 
ous day for Catholics in this country, when, under the 
blows of justice and morality [Jesuitical intrigues,] our 
school system will be shivered to pieces;" and the Roman 
Catholic Tablet says, "The organization of the schools, 
their entire internal arrangement and management, the 
choice and regulation of studies, and the selection, ap- 
pointment, and dismissal of teachers, belong exclusively 
to the spiritual authority. The State usurps the functions 
of the spiritual society [that is, the Roman Catholic Church] 
when it turns educator." 

Thus Popery, which was in the zenith of its power at 
the midnight of the world's history, antagonizes our system 
of universal education. Ah, they would again shroud the 
world in gloom by suppressing, mutilating, glossing, or 
shading the light that shines so clearly from the Holy Bible. 

Whether these characters wish for a monopoly of 
knowledge to enhance their own importance, or the more 
effectually to bend the multitude to a compliance with 
their own sectarian designs, or wish for a return of night, 
that, like beasts of prey, they may creep around or rush 
out on their unsuspecting prey, we stop not now to say; 
rejoicing that humanity, reason, revelation, religion, the 
progress and the spirit of the age, all join, as they have 
done in all our history, to condemn the attempt and pre- 
vent its success, and with thunder-tones the inhabitants 
of Ohio, from river to lake, will declare at the ballot-box, 
and by pulpit, pew, and press, in the language of the 
Constitution of the State of Ohio, article VIII, item 3, 
"That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to 
worship Almighty God according to the dictates of con- 
science; that no human authority can, in any case what- 
ever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; 



36 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

that no man shall be compelled to attend, erect, or sup- 
port any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry 
against his consent; and that no preference shall ever be 
given by law to any reHgious society or mode of worship, 
and no religious test shall be required as a qualification 
to any office of trust or profit. 

"But religion, morality, and knowledge being essen- 
tially necessary to good government and the happiness of 
mankind, schools and the means of instruction shall for- 
ever be encouraged by legislative provisions not incon- 
sistent with the rights of conscience." 

Romanism is the ancient, the hereditary foe of civil 
and religious liberty. The leading Catholic paper in the 
United States holds forth as follows: "While the State 
has rights, she has them only in virtue and by permission 
of the superior authority, and that authority can only be 
expressed through the Catholic Church." There you 
have it. The State is but a servant of the Church. 
"The spiritual and temporal swords both belong to the 
Church; the spiritual is wielded by the Church, and the 
temporal for the Church." Romanism is the most dan- 
gerous enemy of American institutions and republicanism 
every-where. How much religious and pohtical freedom 
would be allowed to the Protestants of the United States 
were the majorities reversed and Romanism in the ascen- 
dency as Protestantism is now? 

There and thus we stand where our Puritan fathers 
stood, and we will defend that Gibraltar, and 

"Shout defiance to the gates of hell;" 

we will say to all mere demagogues, who, for place and 
pelf, would sacrifice the dearest interests of heart, and 
home, and hope, your covenant with hell shall not stand; 
your refuge of lies shall be overflown as with a flood. 



i 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 37 

The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, held in 1872, with rare wisdom, gave the follow- 
ing utterance on this vital question of the hour, namely: 

^'the common-schools. 

''Whereas, we have always, as a Church, accepted 
the work of education as a duty enjoined by our com- 
mission 'to teach all nations;' and whereas, the system of 
common-schools is an indispensable safeguard to republi- 
can institutions; and whefeas, the combined and persistent 
assaults of the Romanists and others endanger the very 
existence of our common-schools; therefore, 

^^ Resolved i. That we will co-operate in every effort 
which is fitted to make our common-schools more efficient 
and permanent. 

^^ Resolved 2. That it is our firm conviction that to di- 
vide the common-school funds among religious denomi- 
nations for educational purposes is wrong in principle, 
and hostile to our free institutions and the cause of 
education. 

^^ Resolved 3. That we will resist all means which may 
be employed to exclude from the common-schools the 
Bible, which is the charter of our liberties and the inspi- 
ration of our civilization." (Journal 1872, page 441.) 

Let us also duly consider that God has given us this 
goodly land, the glory of all lands, extending from the 
St. Lawrence on the north to the Rio Grande on the 
south, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, whilst 
over all is seen — 

«* Our country's flag in lines of blood, 

Forever telling as it waves, 
Where side by side our fathers stood 

And died to plant it o'er their graves." 



38 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

That banner, for which many a noble life was proudly 
given, that banner of beauty and glory, the memorial of 
thrilling memories, floats to-day in undisputed supremacy 
over the greatest domain on earth. 

De Tocqueville, the distinguished statesman and cosmo- 
politan tourist, in his notes on America, says, *^Its vast 
domain furnishes the most magnificent home for man to 
be found on the footstool of God!" It is a land marked 
with every excellency of soil and climate; with every 
variety of mineral wealth; a land of forests and prairies 
and mountains; a land indented with the deepest and 
most capacious harbors; a land traversed in every di- 
rection with the mightiest rivers, ''the unpaid carriers of 
a nation's wealth;" a land of inland seas, whose waves 
wash our northern shores, as Erie, Superior, and Michi- 
gan pour their treasures at our feet; a domain that has 
annexed Florida, Louisiana territory, Texas, California, 
New Mexico, and Alaska since its nationality began; a 
country made up of thirty-eight States and seven vast 
territories, many of which would, singly, furnish domains 
for nations and empires, as New York, Pennsylvania, 
Virginia, and Texas; a land of canals, turnpikes, and 
railroads; a land whose mighty rivers are plowed with 
rushing steamers, whose fleshless arms and pulses leap with 
floods of living fire, whose hoarse voices wake the echoes 
of a thousand forests, as 

*' With crashing wheel, and lifting keel, 
And smoking banners high ; 
When winds are wild and billows reel, 
She thunders foaming by ;" 

a land whose citizens talk with a tongue of fire, and dis- 
tant converse hold by a still small voice o'er gleaming 
wires chained down o'er hill and dale, and mountain 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 39 

height and blooming vale, the grand highways of thought, 
an American courier that far outspeeds the rolling earth, 

"And lays the car of time aback; 
Ere word is said or deed is done, 
'T is off upon its spirit track;" 

a land that has • become the granary of Europe, and fur- 
nishes provisions for the outside world in quantities in- 
computable; a land whose white winged-commerce is 
wafted by every wind to every quarter of the world; a 
country equal in size to all of Europe, Russia excepted; a 
country extending from the tropics in the south to the 
snowy regions of Alaska; a country including the larger 
and better part of all the habitable lands within the 
Northern Temperate Zone. 

We need not the gold of Africa, nor the spices of 
Arabia, nor India's fertile soil, nor the mellow skies of 
Italy, nor would we have them with their degradations, 
ignorance, and superstitions, nor European domains with 
their kingcraft, and priestcraft, and ironhanded despots. 
Nay, we prefer our own California, with her exhaust- 
less mines, our flower-embroidered prairies, our majestic 
mountains and fruitful valleys, our capacious harbors, our 
rock-bound coasts, our vast fishing grounds, almost limit- 
less, our vast coal mines, in which you might tuck old 
England away for safe keeping. Our Republic now ex- 
tends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent, 
and the two great oceans of the world lave our orient 
and Occident, and we realize, on a large scale, the de- 
scription of the ornamental shield of Achilles: 

"Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned 
With his last work, and poured the ocean round ; 
In living silver seemed the waves to roll, 
And beat the buckler's verge and bound the whole." 



40 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

It is a country whose mechanical genius stands peerless in 
all competition, whilst her looms and printing presses, 
and sewing machines, and mowers and reapers, and va- 
rious agricultural and mechanical inventions astonish the 
world; a land where laborers are sovereigns and labor is 
deemed honorable, and the crown jewels of the nation 
are the sweat drops on the brows of her enterprising 
farmers and mechanics, who find and show that honest 
patient toil 

' Puts iron in the muscle 
And crystal in the brain ;" 

a land where the genius of universal liberty, after the 
toil and horrors of war are over, says: 

"Now cheerily, on the sturdy ax of labor, 
Let the sun-beams dance, 
Brighter than the flash of saber 
Or the gleam of lance." 

It is a land whose literature has kept abreast of the world, 
whilst her poets, painters, sculptors, historians, statesmen, 
philosophers, divines, generals and admirals, and military 
and naval powers have challenged the admiration of man- 
kind; a land that has increased in population from less 
than three million in 1776, till now our population swells 
largely over forty-three millions of citizens, and doubles 
her population in each period of twenty-three years, so 
that by the time your smiling boy in his cradle shall be 
adorned with manly beard our population will have 
reached to over eighty millions of Am.erican citizens; a 
land of which we may say, in the language of another, 
" It is a country to which God has intrusted one of the 
mightiest empires on earth, and has obviously connected 
it with his gracious plans for the enlightening and salva- 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 4 1 

tion of the wide, wide world; a country where, amidst 
much of darkness, a brighter light of Gospel truth is 
shining; where, in the midst of awful vice, there has 
been developed a higher degree of public and private 
virtue than in any other; a country whose civil, political, 
and religious institutions are at once the light and the admi- 
ration of a great part of the world, and to imitate which 
many other nations are making convulsive efforts." 

Justice here is a terror to evil doers. Equal law here 
spreads its protection over the roof of the cabin as well 
as over the prouder dome. Here conscience is set free 
from every fetter. The various denominations of Chris- 
tians keep their solemn assemblies. The Sabbaths of the 
land are marked by worshiping multitudes, and cheered 
by the songs of Zion. Our hill-tops are crowned with 
churches. Our land abounds with schools, academies, 
colleges, and universities. Millions of children are edu- 
cated in sacred and secular knowledge in Christian fam- 
ilies, in our matchless public-schools, well styled ^'the 
People's Colleges," and in our Sabbath-schools and 
Churches. Our Bible Society places that "gift of God" 
in every family that will receive it. Benevolent orders, 
such as Masons, Odd-fellows, Sons of Temperance, etc., 
interweave society, and warrant us to say, ''God our 
patron has not dealt so with any nation." He daily 
loadeth us with his benefits. 

Nobly, beyond eulogy, our patriot sires met the respon- 
sibilities of their day and achieved the independence of 
thirteen colonies, and left their children and their chil- 
dren's children to say and sing, 

"Forever float that standard sheet! 

Where breathes the foe that stands before us, 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
And freedom's banner floating o'er us." 
4 



42 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

At the close of the Revolutionary War, which lasted 
seven years, 

"White-robed peace, crowned with her hazel wreath, 
To rustic agriculture did bequeath 
The broken iron instruments of death." 

Thus gloriously the new nation started in her grand orbit 
on its high mission among the powers of the earth, an 
evangel of truth, righteousness, liberty, and hope; and 
thus our Puritan pioneers accomplished their declared 
purpose to establish, on this vast continent, 

««A Church without a prelate, 
And a State without a king." 

Immediately after the close of the war of the Revolu- 
tion, a time of great distress occurred on account of the 
staggering depreciation of an inflated currency, which 
rim-racked and center-shook the material interests of 
America. Our veteran soldiers were dismissed from the 
batde lines without their pay, with the assurance that the 
new government would duly provide for the liquidation 
of their claims, and the noblest virtues led them, with 
arms in their hands, promptly to break ranks; and quietly 
they dispersed to their distant homes — 

"To beg their bread 
Through reahns their valor won." 

The old confederate rag money proved as deceitful as 
the mirage of the desert, and the people found that they 
had to go to work and create values by patient toil; as 
just in proportion to the inflation of rag currency was its 
depreciation as the prices of every article quadrupled in 
the market, and the purchasing power of the greenbacks 
of that day deteriorated so alarmingly that confidence 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 43 

was destroyed, and the duped laborer took a basket full 
of greenbacks to the market-place for his provisions, and 
brought home his purchases in his side pocket; a career 
on which the Don Quixotes and wreckers of modern 
days would allure our country to its ruin ! 

The existence of African Slavery in our land dates 
back to 1620, when a Dutch galley anchored in James 
River with a cargo of slaves; but the vessel was ordered 
off by the authorities. Shortly afterward the British 
opened up the trade on their own account, and Pandora's 
box was again opened on James River in 1620, the very 
year in which the Puritans made their landing on Plym- 
outh Rock, and thus the bane and antidote simultaneously 
appeared. 

This curse, which, like the ''roll of Ezekiel, is writ- 
ten within and without with lamentations, and mourning, 
and woe," has been the bane and the shame of our 
American life. The British, for cruel lust of gold, forced 
the "trade in the souls of men" upon their colonists, and 
England found employment for her ships and sailors, and 
for the capital of her merchants in trading her productions 
with "men stealers" on the coast of Africa, receiving 
hundreds of thousands of slaves from their Barracoons in 
exchange for their cargoes. 

In the original draft of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, we find this charge against the British King, that 
"he has perpetuated the slave trade in the Colonies, and 
forced it upon an unwilling people." Centuries before, 
St. Paul, addressing an Athenian audience, declared that 
"God hath made of one blood all nations of men to 
dwell on the face of the whole earth, and that we all his 
offspring are." One blood and one brotherhood was the 
capital idea proclaimed by the great Apostle of the Gen- 
tiles in the ears of the cold-hearted skeptics, philosophers. 



44 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

and revilers of Athens. The silence of centuries has 
stopped those inspired lips and sealed up the ears of that 
caviling audience. 

The corroding breath of time has melted away the 
marble temples of men's hands, and the altar, with its 
inscription "to the unknown God,'-' to which the bold 
setter forth of strange doctrines pointed his audience 
when he uttered the sublime revelation of the unity of 
humanity, "the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of man." 

But that great truth lived on, beating its strong and 
latent life-beats in the great heart of our common hu- 
manity, sending out into the minutest veins of the body 
corporate of mankind the vital currents of a common sym- 
pathy. It lived on in every line of nature's music and 
smiled in every rain drop or brightening ray that fell or 
shone on the just and the unjust. 

That utterance was heard from age to age in every 
groan of the oppressed, in every prayer of the enslaved, 
in every shout of the conqueror in his struggle with 
tyrants. It lived on when Cromwell and "his ironsides," 
at the decisive battle of Naseby, dashed on the king's forces 
and shivered them to atoms. It gained utterance when 
John Wesley, in 1742, wrote to his friend Wilberforce, 
who was laboring for the abolition of slavery in the West 
India Isles, and said, ''God speed you, my friend; you 
will find as did Athanasius, that you stand agamst the 
world; I hope you will succeed, and that your labors in 
the holy cause of freedom will even reach the American 
slave trade, which is the vilest under the sun, and the 
execrable sum of all human villainies." 

That truth lived on when Lord Mansfield said in the 
British Parliament, "Talk not to me about human laws 
sanctioning human slavery! There is, sir, a law above 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 45 

all the enactments of human codes. It is the law written 
upon the heart of man by the finger of God, a law, sir, 
unchangeable and eternal! And, sir, whilst men despise 
fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall re- 
ject with indignation the wild and ghastly claim that one 
man can, of right, hold property in his fellow man!" 
That truth was outspoken by the quivering lips of John 
Randolph, of Roanoke, when he said in Congress, "Sir, 
I envy neither the head nor the heart of that man who 
rises here to defend slavery on principle." It lived on 
when Thomas Jefferson said, in his Notes on Virginia, 
** Wherever slavery exists the hour of emancipation is ad- 
vancing with the cadenced step of time. Emancipation 
will come to the slaves of America, and whether brought 
on by the generous energy of our own minds, or by the 
bloody process of San Domingo, is a leaf in our history 
not yet turned! Yet I tremble for my country when I 
remember that God is just, and that his justice can not 
sleep forever." 

That voice of Paul was heard again when old Vir- 
ginia ceded all the territory north-west of the Ohio 
River to the General Government, and declared in the 
immortal ordinance of 1787, that "religion, morality, 
and knowledge being necessary to good government and 
the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of ed- 
ucation shall forever be encouraged;" and that "no per- 
son demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner 
shall ever be molested on account of his mode of wor- 
ship or religious sentiments," and "there shall be neither 
slavery or involuntary servitude in all the territory North- 
west of the Ohio River, otherwise than in the punishment 
of crimes whereof the parties shall be duly convicted." 

That voice on Mars' Hill became trumpet-tongued 
again when our fathers said in the Declaration of Ameri- 



46 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

can Independence that "We hold these truths to be self- 
evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, 
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness," and ''that for the maintenance of these rights 
governments are instituted among men, and when any 
form of government becomes subversive of these ends, it 
is the right of the people to alter or abolish it." 

That Pauline doctrine was placed in the Discipline of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church from its earliest history 
as a mournful oracle, anxiously and hopefully asking 
along the decades of its history: 

"What shall be done for the extirpation of the great 
evil of slavery? Answer. We are as much as ever con- 
vinced of the great evil of slavery; therefore, resolved," etc. 

That Pauline utterance was heard in thunder-tones 
when the General Conference of 1844 passed the famous 
resolution offered by Rev. James B. Finley and Rev. 
Joseph M. Trimble, D. D., in the case of Bishop James 
Osgood Andrew, who became, by marriage, the owner 
of slaves, and refused to liberate them. We insert that 
notable resolution as the recorded sentiment of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, which had never from its genesis 
admitted a slave-holder to its episcopacy : 

"Whereas, the Discipline of our Church forbids the 
doing of any thing calculated to destroy our itinerant 
general superintendency, and, whereas, Bishop Andrew 
has become connected with slavery by marriage and 
otherwise, and this act having drawn after it circumstances 
which, in the estimation of the General Conference, will 
greatly embarrass the exercise of his office as an itinerant 
general superintendent, if not in some places entirely pre- 
vent it; therefore, 

^'' Resolved J That it is the sense of this General Con- 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 4/ 

ference that he desist from the exercise of this office so 
long as this impediment remains." 

We are proud of the fact that the Ohio Conference, 
of which the Cincinnati Conference was then an integral 
part, furnished a Finley and Trimble, who set and drove 
the entering wedge by which, at last, our holy Method- 
ism freed lierself from this complicity with American 
slavery, the curse of our land and the foul blot on the 
escutcheon of the Church, and rather than have fellow- 
ship with this great wrong, endured the loss of about two 
thousand preachers and over three hundred thousand 
Church members, with millions of Church property, in the 
great secession from the Methodist Episcopal Church, by 
which the Methodist Episcopal Church South was organ- 
ized on a basis entirely acceptable to the slaveholders of 
the slaveholding States, who haughtily announced in every 
possible form, that — 

"The jNIoloch of slavery sitteth on high, 
Bow down at this shrine and worship or die." 

The antagonism of Methodism to slavery was patent, 
positive, and potential, and how can two walk together 
unless they are agreed? 

There were giants in those days, such as James B. 
Finley, Joseph M. Trimble, Charles Elliott, Edward 
Thomson, Jacob Young, Michael Marlay, William H. 
Raper, John F. Wright, A. M. Lorrain, JolTn Stewart, 
Joshua Boucher, Cyrus Brooks, Adam Poe, Leonard B. 
Gurley, and others, whose names were not born to die, 
all feeling and showing the same inspiration that distin- 
'guished Paul on Mars' Hill when he declared the equal 
rights of man. 

Probably to no one cause is the emancipation of four 
millions and a half of our fellow men, and their elevation 



48 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

to American citizenship, more to be attributed than to 
the steady testimony of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
against slavery, and the healthful, hopeful agitation of the 
subject on the public mind, through the Argus-eyed and 
Briareus-handed vigilance, fidelity, and influence of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. 

The sires of the Revolution were true men; they ex- 
pected slavery to be speedily banished from the land; but 
alas, when prosperity came upon us, and the Whitney cot- 
ton-gin made cotton valuable, then the principles of the 
fathers were abandoned, and the South became selfish 
and haughty and defiant and exacting, until the barba- 
rism of slavery became concrete in the fell purpose to 
disrupt the Government in the interests of slavery. 

In the midst of national culture and prosperity at 
home, and the highest prestige abroad, the States of 
South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louis- 
iana, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, 
and Virginia, seceded from the Union, and rebelled 
against the National Government. In vain was every 
argument, every appeal, every appliance. Patriotism in 
vain expostulated, and said to them, "Will you forget the 
past? O, remember, 

"Greene drew his blade at Eutaw, 
And bleeding Southern feet 
Trod the march across the Delaware, 
Amid the snow and sleet. 

And lo ! upon the parchment, 
. Where our natal record shines, 

The burning page of Jefferson 
Bears Franklin's calmer lines. 

Will ye divide that record bright, 

Or tear those names apart, 
That once were planted nobly there 

With pledge of hand and heart? 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 49 

Can ye erase a Hancock's name 

E'en with the saber's edge, 
Or wash out, with fraternal blood, 

A Carroll's double pledge ? 

Can ye divide, with equal hands 

A heritage of graves, 
Or rend in twain the starry flag 

That o'er them proudly waves? 

Will ye cast lots for Vernon's soil, 

And chaffer 'midst the gloom 
That hangs in solemn folds around 

Your common Father's tomb ? 

Ye should not, shall not, can not : 't is 

The Atlantic's loud decree; 
'Tis echoed where Nevada guards 

The blue and tranquil sea. 

Where tropic waves delighted clasp 

Our Southern flow'ry shore. 
And where through frowning mountain gates, 

Nebraska's waters roar." 

But all was in vain ! They inaugurated open, flagrant, 
deadly war to compel the Government to submit to its 
own dissolution and destruction, and for what? Let 
them, through the Vice-President of their proposed Con- 
federacy say for what. Hear him: "The foundations of 
the new government are laid upon the great truth that 
slavery — the subordination of an inferior race — is the 
negro's natural and normal condition; that this is the first 
government in the history of the world based upon this 
great physical, philosophical, and moral truth; and that 
the stone which was rejected by the first builders is, in 
this edifice, become the chief stone of the corner." 

Thus human slavery, which, from its very essence, 
ever disputes the supremacy of Jehovah, and ignores 

5 



50 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

the inherent rights of man, based upon his being a man, 
has ever evoked the frown of the ''All-Father" from the 
period when warning after warning, and miracle after 
miracle, had been lost on Pharaoh and his court, and 
even the turbid Nile, crimsoned into blood, blushed at 
Pharaoh's impudence; yet on he went till this ancient 
slaveholder and his haughty princes perished in the midst 
of a miracle of divine wrath, and the freedmen passed by 
a baptism on dry land to the possession of the common 
patrimony of humanity; namely, Hfe, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness, for the maintenance of which govern- 
ments among men are formed. 

You are familiar with the scene of terror through 
which the country passed to her purification. Ah, it was 
a gradual sanctification; but it reached its completion 
when the last manacled slave became a free citizen of the 
great RepubHc, and the stone falling on the Confederacy, 
ground it to powder. 

The moral heroism of those days is indescribably 
sublime. The nation rose to greatness during that strug- 
gle as never before. Sacrifices were made, sufferings 
endured, precious lives were surrendered, and sadly but 
heroically we sang, 

"Whether upon the gallows high, 
Or in the battle's van, 
The fittest place for man to die 
Is where he dies for man." 

In the midst of our terrible and prolonged struggle, 
and whilst the dark and angry clouds hung in funereal 
folds around the temple of liberty, the patriot's eye saw 
the star of liberty brightly, steadily beaming down upon 
the gloomy scene. Thank God that star shone on— 
"The only star that was not dimmed 
By overflowing clouds." 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 5 1 

The patriot's eye discerned, upon the mountain-tops, 
the rosy footsteps of the dawn of the glorious day of uni- 
versal freedom in our land. We have, indeed, been 
required to redeem our liberties by great national sacri- 
fices, greater by far than were the sacrifices which made 
us a nation. 

The battles of the Revolution were but as skirmishes 
to our battle lines, and, indeed, the armies of '76 would 
have been insufficient as a line of skirmishers at Stone 
River, Mission Ridge, Gettysburg, and beyond the Rapi- 
dan to Richmond. 

The baptisms of blood and fire which inaugurated the 
national repossession of Virginia, North and South Caro- 
lina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, 
Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, have been a sublime and awful 
reconsecration of those regions to the future hopes of the 
patriot and the establishment of freedom of those vast 
States. The sublime heroism displayed by our armies on 
those bloody fields, where our nationality was preserved 
and our glory was won in meeting the veteran forces of 
the chivalry, and hurling back their battle lines bleeding 
and broken, and thereby saving those sunny lands to 
freedom's cause, and to our national Union, presents a 
solemn grandeur unexcelled in all the annals of authentic 
war. There the noble men of your homes and your 
heart's pure love stood, aye advanced, — 

<' While high in air and over all, 
Hung like a fog that murky pall, 
Beneath whose gloom of dusky smoke 
The cannon flamed, and bombshells broke, 
And the sharp rattling volley rang, 
And shrapnel screamed and bullets sang, 
Whilst fierce-eyed men with panting breath 
Toiled onward at the work of death." 



52 



MEMORIAL DAYS. 



To the heroic achievments there performed, the gal- 
lant deeds there done, the unmurmuring sufferings there 
endured, the historian and poet of future centuries will 
turn for brilliant examples wherewith to teach, and for 
gallant deeds whereof to sing. The heroes who there 
fell have gained a record of deathless, fadeless fame as 
freedom's warriors, who saved the ocean-bound republic. 
We have left their bodies in the soldiers' graves of a 
hundred battle-fields. Do you ask, Where are the unre- 
turning braves 1 We answer: We left them with their 
martial garb around them, we left them 

•'In the land of die cedar and the vine, 
Where the flowers ever blossom and the beams ever shine ; 
Where the warm wings of zephyr oppressed with perfume, 
Wax faint o'er the fields of the south in their bloom; 
In the climes of the south, in the land of the sun, 
Where God smiles on the deeds our brave men have done." 

Do you ask still where are they] Do you hear an 
oracular response as with a still small voice saying, 

•* On fame's eternal camping ground 
Their snow-white tents are spread, 
Whilst glory guards with solemn round 
The bivouac of the dead ?" 

Then let us together rejoice that — 

*<The war-drum throbs no longer, 
That our battle-flags are furled." 

Let US pray that as God's judgments have been abroad 
in our land, the people may learn righteousness, which 
alone exalts a nation. Let us believe that Samson's rid- 
dle is already read, and that as he got honey out of the 
carcass of the lion that would have slain him, so to us 
"out of the eater shall come forth meat, and out of the 
strong shall come forth sweetness;" and so the nation's 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. 53 

history shall show that, providentially, partial evil shall 
prove a general good; that, indeed, — 

•' War is God's great plowshare, 
Drive o'er the thorny, barren fields of earth, 
Preparing them for culture, 
That on those grave-drawn furrows 
The great Husbandman may cast the golden seed." 

In the hasty glances at the receding eras of the clos- 
ing century, we should note — 

"That God-marked man, 
"Whose life on village green began, 
And shone in spreading glories to its close." 

Abraham Lincoln was as much raised up to guide our 
ship of state through a euroclydon in an archipelago, as 
was Moses to accomplish the exodus of Israel from 
Egyptian bondage. He of the eagle eye and lion heart, 
and loving soul, was persistent as polarity. 

In Cincinnati, en route to Washington to enter on 
the duties of this high office, he said, from the platform 
at the Burnet House to his Kentucky hearers, *' Gentle- 
men, I shall have on my soul a heaven-recorded vow to 
save my country and to administer her laws. You can 
have no such voav to destroy it." That was the key-note 
of his life. Sitting with him and Hon. Samuel Galloway 
in the White House, in the course of the evening's con- 
versation he said, ''Sam, I tell you now that if it had 
not been for the prompt, and early, and persistent, and 
practically aroused patriotism of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, we never could have saved this nation; we should 
have inevitably failed." To this Mr. Galloway gave his 
prompt approval. 

In 1864 when the General Conference sent its delega- 
tion of five, namely, Bishop Ames, Rev. George Peck, 
Dr. Charles Elliott, Dr. Cummings (President of Wesleyan 



54 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

University), and your speaker, to bear the congratulations 
of the Conference to the President on the success of our 
arms after the passage of the Rapidan, in response 
President Lincohi deUvered that memorable reply, in 
which he said, "God bless all the Churches! ' God bless 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, which, by reason of 
its greater numbers and peculiar organization and prac- 
tical patriotism, has sent more soldiers to our battle lines, 
more nurses to our hospitals, and more prayers to heaven 
than any other. God bless the Churches, and blessed be 
God who hath given us the Churches in the hours of our 
greatest need." 

A thousand thrilling memories throng on our minds at 
the mention of his name. The barbarism of slavery reached 
its climax in the assassination of the " Martyr President." 

The nation and the world mourned the loss of this 
second Washington, and as his body passed in his gloomy 
catafalque, the millions on the line of the great Western 
railroad did homage to his memory and his remains as 
they stood in solid, solemn masses around the train and 
wept, and with dirge-like notes mournfully sang, 
"Thy work is clone, thy soul is free, 
We bear thee to thy honored grave, 
Henceforth thy monument shall be, 
The broken fetters of the slave." 

Thus God favored us with a Washington at the open- 
ing and closing of the century we review. 'Tis pleasing 
through and by all these changes to note and chronicle 
the growing glories of our Immanuel's cause. 

The militant and battling hosts have followed the 
Captain of their salvation in his great campaign, and I see 
you in this half-fought battle against Satan, sin, and self, 
still steady and hopeful. Let us rejoice in what God has 
wrought in and by all the Churches of our country, and 



CENTENNIAL SERMON. $$ 

let us rejoice that he has honored our beloved Method- 
ism, which antedates the century we have reviewed. 
At the beginning of the hundred years which will fill its 
cycle on the 4th of July, 1876, the Methodist Church 
had no more than eighteen preachers and 3,148 mem- 
bers in all its branches. Now it has 35,959 preachers, 
and 3,061,346 members. In the Methodist Episcopal 
Church proper, according to the general minutes of 
1874, there are 23,435 local and traveling preachers, 
and 1,563,521 members and probationers. Then its 
churches were few, now we have 15,010 churches worth 
$69,288,815. Then we had no book publishing house, 
now we have ten, doing business on a capital of $1,500,- 
000. Then we had no newspapers, now we have ten. 
Then we had no Sabbath-schools, now there are under 
our care 1,363,876 children, and 200,492 teachers. Then 
we had no foreign Missionaries, now we employ loi, and 
expend on them and on home missionaries $667,360.80 
annually. Let us thank God and take courage — 

"With a heart for any fate, 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labor, and to wait." 

"Other men have labored, and we have entered into 
their labors." Let us labor on and other men shall enter 
into our labors, and toiling on beneath the great Task- 
master's eye, he will, know how to mete out the reward 
which is "reckoned not of debt, but of grace." 

Remembering that Congress, on the nth of Septem- 
ber, 1777, passed a resolution ordering the committee on 
commerce to import 20,000 Bibles, and in 1781 Congress, 
by resolution, recommended the edition of the Bible 
printed by Mr. Aitkin, and believing that the temple of 
republican liberty will .be safe so long as the rock of 



56 MEMORIAL DAYS. 

Bible truth remains in its foundation, we will say, with a 
distinguished American jurist: 

''Let this precious volume have its due influence on 
the hearts of men, and our liberties are safe, our country- 
blessed, and the world happy. There is not a tie that 
unites us to our families, not a virtue that endears us to 
our country, not a hope that thrills our bosoms in the 
prospect of future happiness that has not its foundation in 
this sacred book. It is the charter of charters; the palla- 
dium of liberty, the standard of righteousness. Its divine 
influence can soften the heart of the tyrant: can break 
the rod of the oppressor, and exalt the humblest peasant 
to the dignified rank of an immortal being and heir of 
eternal glory." As the closing century passes into history 
we hear it saying "Te Deum Laudamus." Meanwhile 
we will join in saying to our noble, sea-worthy ship of 
State, 

*<Sail on, O noble ship of State, 
Sail on, O Union strong and great j 
Humanity with all its fears. 
With all its hopes of future years, 
Is hanging on thy fate. 
"We know what master laid thy keel, 
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge, in what a heat, 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. 
Fear not each sudden shock, 
'T is of the wave and not the rock ; 
In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
In spite of false lights on the shore, 
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea. 
Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee ; 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee, are all with thee." 






Semorial Iays 



A CENTENf(IAL SERMOtt 



^tfiieached befor,e the (Cincinnati Q;onfcr,once, at (Cincinnati, 

^cptembcu -i, .1875. 



BY REV, GRAMILLE MOODY, D. D. 



^ 



CINCINNATI. 
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A COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF METHODISM. 

FOK YOUNG PKOPLK. 

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..i^fJElOLUki 



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By Rev. T. R. Birks, M. A. 
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By Rev. W. Trail. 

12mo $1 75 



MAN ALL IMMORTAL. 

By Davis W. Clark, D. D. 
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THE EVIDENCES OF REVELATION. 

A Series of Lectures by Bishop Edward Thom- a 

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LIFE AND WORK OF EARNEST MEN. i 

By W. K. Tweedie, D. D. ♦ 

12mo SI 75 ! 

♦ 

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or, i 

A Sketch of the Closing Days of Dk. Wm. I 

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POLITICAL ROMANISM; 

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The Secular Policy of tlie Papal Charch. 

By Rev. G. W. Hughey, A. M. 

Bound in Muslin— Popular edition, 18mo.....$l 00 
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»>?fTT'^'o 



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> I 

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